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Midnight saw everything from everywhere. Her presence saturated the storm, flowing through the very marrow of the Albweiss. The grand male was not yet lost to her. She watched it all unfold: the voltera’s frantic descent, Gorak’s resolute stance, the scattered remnants of the ork horde. Her darkness stretched, flowing like tendrils, tracing the voltera’s fall in grim detail. Every jagged scrape, every desperate gouge in the rock and ice was laid bare before her. The beast’s claws tore deep furrows into the mountainside as he plummeted, dislodging massive slabs of ice that tumbled into the abyss below, sending thick cascades of snow in their wake.
The mountain reacted violently, avalanches crashing down in suffocating waves, hundreds of metres of raw force plunging into the yawning chasm. The cliffs opened up, revealing a vast, terrible canyon — an endless void of shadow and ice. From there, it was a free fall — As the voltera neared this precipice, just meters above that gaping void, his claws finally found purchase in the frozen rock, halting his plunge in a sudden, savage grip. The force of its impact dislodged another cascade of snow, which poured down into the canyon’s depths like a suffocating shroud, but the voltera clung to the cliffside, refusing to yield. His beast’s primal tenacity was palpable, his very will to live an affront to the unforgiving elements.
Midnight’s darkness wove itself into the tension of the moment. She felt it — the air vibrating with a sinister hum, the mountain itself unsettled by something more than the storm. A twisted tremor, a foreboding fracture in the natural order. It was the wizard. His presence was a rupture in the Albweiss, a pulse of magic deeply corrupted. He moved abruptly, leaping from the crumbling ledge with a speed and power his body could not possess —
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Two shapes soared past Gorak, cutting through the storm with terrifying speed. The wizard had followed the voltera, propelling himself off the mountain with a leap that defied nature. He plummeted through the air, his descent rapid and calculated, a predator honing in on prey. Behind him, the avian beast followed — its head thrust forward, beak like a spear, slicing through the storm without hesitation. Wingless, yet it glided as if the winds themselves bent to its will.
As the wizard fell, his body warped and expanded, muscles bulging beneath his skin, bones stretching and twisting in abstruse contortions, legs lengthening into talon-like appendages. His feet gnarled into vicious claws while grand folds of skin erupted from his back, fusing with his arms, thickening and sprouting feathers in an instant; monstrous wings snapping open. His transformation was swift and violent, a grotesque act of primal magic that twisted his form into something both beastly and horrifying. He had become a creature of flight, an abomination far larger, far more terrifying than the voltera.
Before the storm swallowed him, Gorak caught one last glimpse — the gleam of talons, as the wizard dove toward the avian beast. With a single, powerful strike of his wings, the wizard surged forward. His warped claws reached out, poised to snatch the avian beast in mid-flight. The air churned violently around them, the storm growing thicker, darker. In an instant, the two figures vanished into the swirling chaos.
Gorak spun around and raised his corotashell horn to his cracked lips, blowing a long, guttural note upwards. The sound resonated through the frozen air, a mournful call meant to carry upwards to those still on the Snowtrail. It was a warning, a cry to alert the remaining warriors of the unseen threat. But the storm clawed at the sound, drowning it in its howling winds. Gorak did not know if it would reach his brother and his bretheren. Then he started to climb.
His brother did not know. None of them knew. They had believed the wizard broken, a broken man at the edge of death, poisoned and drained of power — the orichs had assured them as much. But what Gorak had just witnessed was no less than the emergence of a monster — something primal and raw, a creature forged in all that was unnatural.
Gorak's mind raced as he climbed. If his brother and the other orks above had gazed down into the depths of the storm, they would have seen nothing but the swirling white tempest. To them, it must have appeared as though the wizard and the avian beast, faced with inevitable defeat, had hurled themselves into death, choosing the abyss over facing the blades of the ork horde. It was the most natural conclusion, an assumption that had held true for years. In the decades Gorak had spent defending the Albweiss, it had always been the beasts that fought to the death to live, and the men and wizards that chose to die even before their lives ended.
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The suddenness of the fall stole the breath from the warriors, the momentum of their savage charge broken as the voltera was swallowed by the storm below. Confusion rippled through their ranks, a collective pause as they watched their prey vanish, followed by the wizard and the avian beast plunging into the abyss as well. The wind howled in their stead, each gust carrying the fury of the mountain, laced with ice sharp enough to flay skin from bone. For one frozen heartbeat, even the bloodlust coursing through the orks faltered. The battle-frenzy that normally consumed them, a madness that otherwise drove them into the maw of death without hesitation, was simply muted by the despair they had witnessed. All that remained was the wail of the wind, the distant roar of the avalanche, and the ragged, shuddering breaths of warriors half-buried under snow and stone.
That stunned silence shattered by Balthagar’s roar, a guttoral cry that ripped through the storm and reverberated through the bones of those still standing, his raw force a violent jolt to their senses. He stood defiant, his breath coming in heaving gasps but his stance unyielding. The avalanche had swallowed half his warband, but Balthagar remained, a towering figure among the survivors. He was a mountain of muscle clad in crude armour, by far the tallest among them. His dark eyes scanned the storm, searching for any sign of movement, of his brother, of the scorchborn, or the other warriors scattered amidst the chaos. His warhammer, caked with ice and blood, gleamed as he raised it high, roaring commands to those still able to move.
"Warriors, get up!" his voice boomed once more, "Get up, or die! Pull your brothers free — now!" They needed to rise before the cold became comfort.
Amidst the orks, something else stirred beneath the snow.
The ground trembled. The orks, still clawing their way free from the snow and ice, froze as they felt it — a deep, throbbing pulse that seemed to vibrate through the very marrow of the earth. It crawled up their legs, sank into their bones, and filled their hearts with a feeling of dread that was more ancient than reason. The snow in front of them shifted, pushed and parted by something enormous that was ploughing its way through the frost-flooded trail towards them.
The monolith moved.
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From where the avian beast had perched, a weathered, towering mass of stone jutted forward with violent, grinding shifts. The orks stared. Emerging from the frozen depths was something grotesque, its movements slow but deliberate. As it forced its path through the aftermath of the avalanche, the layered fragments of rock and frost cracked and heaved upward, contorting and ever growing.
The emerging entity had four limbs, thick and twisted like the roots of a primordial tree, yet it rose to stand unnervingly upright. Its hind limbs were short and powerful. Its two arms were disproportionately longer, grotesquely elongated. They ended in enormous, articulated hands that bore long, spindly fingers, more like the claws of a skeletal predator than anything natural. As they pushed against the mounds of snow, those fingers flexed in fluid motion, imbued with almost witch-like precision. These hands stood in sharp contrast to its jagged, brutish shoulders and chest, twisted masses of stone built on a torso that rotated freely in all directions, allowing the golem to swing its massive arms like destructive pendulums to clear the snow and ice with sheer force. As it moved, snow and rock cascaded from its form like the shedding of dead skin, the sound of cracking ice mingling with the grinding of stone. The ancient stone underneath was of pure mountain blood, etched with runes. The golem had awakened.
Balthagar's expression twisted between awe and fury. His breath came in heavy, ragged clouds. The orichs had warned him and Gorak about the monolith, had hailed its hidden power. They had insisted on patience, on leaving the wizard untouched while he wove his magic. They believed his spell could be harnessed, controlled, that the artefact on the wizard’s back, the mountain-blood armour, was the key to unlocking the golem’s power. And the wizard, just before leaping into his death, had unleashed it.
Balthagar had opposed the orichs. He had wanted to kill the wizard immediately. The golem was of the mountain, forged from the stone and blood of the Albweiss. The orks were the mountain’s guardians, its protectors, bound by blood and ancient oaths. They were never meant to control it, to dare contain its essence within the crude bounds of spellwork. The mountain had no master. But Gorak had listened to the orichs. He had been swayed by visions of an unstoppable weapon that would mark a turning point in their war against the witches.
But something was wrong. The orichs had sworn to intervene once the wizard had given life force to the golem. They were meant to observe and then act, to protect the warriors and seize control. Yet no magic has been cast.
Balthagar’s hands tightened around the haft of his warhammer, veins bulging as his fury grew. The orichs had insisted the warriors drag out the fight, demanded sacrifices, all to lure the sickly wizard into desperation — to give him the illusion his party could win, but to make the golem the only path to such victory. The orks had held back when they could have ended it swiftly, suffered losses to the voltera just to witness the spellcasting. They had obeyed. They had bled for this moment. And now the golem was awake, and his brother was gone, and the orichs were nowhere to be seen.
Something was terribly wrong. All of this was wrong. They were wrong. This was not the first time Balthagar had questioned their plans, but each time, Gorak had silenced his doubts. Gorak had always trusted the orichs, had always believed in their promises of power, and Gorak was krag — not only his brother, but his leader. But now, Gorak was gone, and with him, the last tether holding Balthagar’s doubts at bay snapped.
Balthagar blew his horn, urging the orks to retreat, then he hauled himself up the jagged mountainside, climbing, heading for the golem to stop it. But even as he moved, he knew it was too late. He was too far in the back to intervene in time. The warriors at the front, buried in the chest-deep snow, were too close, too exposed. They struggled to pull themselves free, clawing at the snow, some hauling their comrades or weapons out from underneath fallen rocks, but they were too slow. The golem was upon them.
Its massive arms swung in devastating arcs. It tore through the snow-covered battlefield with terrifying purpose, each step shaking the earth beneath it. The orks were no match for its raw, overwhelming power. They were trampled, tossed aside, and thrown down the slope like runts, their weapons clattering uselessly against the ancient stone.
Balthagar was consumed by rage as he watched his warriors being torn apart. How dare the orichs force them to endure this? The warriors of the Albweiss were not meant to lift their weapons against a being of mountain blood, blood which the most deserving of them came to share. An ork never shies from battle or death, but to see the mountain turned against them, twisted to obey a wizard’s will, was a blow to their very core. Balthagar would not yield. He leapt at the golem from his vantage point, roaring with rage as his warhammer swung down with all his might. The weapon struck the golem’s head, and as he landed, it connected again with its leg, sparks flying on impact, but the golem did not even shift. In swift retaliation, a massive arm came crashing down, smashing into Balthagar's armour, shattering it like kindling and sending him tumbling backward through the snow. He slammed into the frozen ground, his head ringing from the force of the blow.
Everything went silent. Balthagar lay still, pain throbbing through his body as his vision swam. Sharp jolts of agony radiated from broken bones, and he felt the dull throb of what must be a shattered skull. He tried to move, to rise, but his limbs were dead weight. Just then, the golem’s arm came crashing down again —
But warriors rushed in. Through the haze, Balthagar saw them, the horde that should have scattered. They surged forward, driven not by fear but by the unbreakable bond of kinship. Orks fought as one, and they would not abandon one of their horde, not now, not ever.
Swords and axes hacked at the golem’s legs, seeking any weakness in its stone. Spears jabbed at its joints, but each strike seemed futile, merely glancing off the hardened surface. Two warriors climbed onto the golem’s back, driving picks and spikes into the cracks between its stone plates, attempting to pry it apart, but the golem shook them off with a violent shrug, sending one ork crashing to the ground and the other flying over the edge of the cliff.
Balthagar lay broken and bleeding, his vision flickering as the world slipped away. He watched as his warriors were crushed beneath the golem's assault or hurled into the abyss. His warband, his brothers, his blood — slaughtered by the very mountain they had sworn to protect. He screamed for the orichs, his voice raw and choked with blood, but the howling wind drowned him, carrying his cries away into the storm. No answer came. He had witnessed Gorak fall with the voltera — his brother lost to the storm because the orichs had refused to wield their magic against the beast. Now, he was forced to watch as the rest of his warriors perished due to their cursed inaction.
It was Maletar who seized the charge and rallied the remaining orks. “Circle it! Push it to the edge!” His voice was hoarse, barely cutting through the chaos, but those closest heard him. They surged forward, now only four in number. They pressed on, hacking at the golem’s stone limbs, striving to drive it toward the cliff's edge. Axes clanged against the stone, spears thrust into its joints, but the golem stood unyielding, retaliating, crushing their bodies beneath its weight or slamming them into the rock wall behind them.
Balthagar's heart could no longer carry his rage. He felt his strength slipping away, the comforting cold seeping into his bones. He cursed the orichs with his last breath, spitting blood and hatred.
Someone heeded his call. Instead of an orich, it was the runt who appeared above him. Of all the orks, it had to be Nagrak — the most useless of them all, clad in his laughably inadequate leather jerkin adorned with all the precious magical stones the orichs had so vehemently insisted upon, stones that had been nothing but a complete waste of resources on him. Yet, there he was, nervously bending over Balthagar, his jittering hands flailing about, but doing nothing. The coward. The only one not fighting. The only one who might survive.
Balthagar struggled to point out the Speran ember to him. His arm would not bend, his trembling hand could not reach up, and his voice faltered. But the runt seemed to understand. He reached for the talisman embedded in Balthagar’s skull, where it had been for over a decade, and attempted to pry it free with a piece of shattered bone. Instead, a sizable fragment of skull came loose with the ember still attached; Balthagar’s skull was already broken, the ember’s bond far stronger than whatever still held his head together.
Balthagar needed to speak, to urge Nagrak to take it to Matalyr, his second eldest daughter, who would know its significance. No one else must know. He tried to beckon the runt closer, but Nagrak’s gaze shot upward, panic flickering in his eyes, and with a sudden jerk, he flinched away.
Something massive shot through the blinding storm. A monstrous avian beast tore through the snow-laden sky, its piercing screech cutting through the howling wind like a blade. Its wings spanned wider than Balthagar could comprehend, throwing the battlefield into chaos with each powerful stroke. The terrifying beast descended toward them, talons outstretched.
It was the last image burned into Balthagar’s mind before a colossal boulder of ice came crashing down upon him. The impact was swift and brutal. In that final moment, as darkness enveloped Balthagar, all that remained was the echo of the brave orks’ dying roars and the agonising realisation that he had entrusted the most sacred of legacies to the most unworthy among them.
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For all but the observing darkness, the boulder had come seemingly out of nowhere.
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